Elevation
by radiumcandy
Summary: A short character vignette on Raphael.


It was a long way down. An eternity of a fall, a hundred stories of no forgiveness whatsoever. One wrong slip to either side, and he would have that eternity to think about all his mistakes, of which going to such an extreme just to get some damned quiet time would be just the last.

Raphael glanced over the side of the girder on which he was perched. The jeweled neon glow of a million city lights blurred a little as the sheerness of the drop to the streets below made his head swim. He leaned back against metal chilled to freezing by the wind, which nevertheless was a supermodel's embrace compared to the alternative.

Not that the danger was really danger, of course. Raphael was utterly secure on his construction crane roost, his powerfully muscular bulk draped over the panels and rivets with all the uncaring languor of a snake in a tree. He was a ninja, after all: A ninja is always centered, always balanced, always utterly in control of his surroundings. In Raphael's case, not just his surroundings: he was in control of his world! Or so he liked to believe, though even in his supreme overconfidence he knew better.

Blanking out that line of thought, Raphael picked up the headphones hanging around his neck and slid them onto his head. Though the music itself was nearly drowned out by the roar of the wind and the incessant creaking of the crane, the slow, wordless throbbing of the bass soothed his senses, mirroring a reptilian heartbeat lulled into near-stasis by the chill. As he closed his eyes and leaned back into the frigid steel, the permanent ache in his knees and tempest in his brain seemed to almost slip away. Only Splinter knew that he took time for meditation, the one part of their training he usually scoffed at. He did it not as a secret pleasure, but as a secret duty to quench his restlessness, take the edge off his aggression. Though the solitude and relative stillness calmed him, Raphael could rarely truly embrace the void and rid himself of his emotions. More than anyone, he had always been chained to them and by them.

Regret? He wasn't the type. A quick-burning temper and edgy intensity left no opportunity to live anywhere but in the moment, no matter what led up to that moment.

Isolation? He was the one who regularly climbed a thousand feet above the concrete to empty his thoughts. Raphael's mouth turned up at one corner in a vague imitation of a snarl, halfway a smile, as that one, most persistent memory intruded: Leo taunting him, Raphael unable to defend himself.

_And you're always whining...poor me, nobody understands me._

He wondered, briefly, if they really didn't understand him. Raphael had always been harsh on his brothers, sometimes, even approaching cruelty. He had long ago hardened his heart against most of his sympathy, even simple pity, for the other three. He occasionally wondered if they didn't realize that his brutality was deeply infused with his love, that his anger was out of frustration when they suffered unnecessarily from their weaknesses. He didn't know if Mikey had even an inkling that he was being taught to defend himself at the hands of someone who cared, rather than learning, too late, at the hands of someone who didn't.

It didn't matter if they knew. He was the vanguard of tough love, the defense by offense. It was the job he had chosen.

The meditation had been broken even before Raphael unwittingly opened his eyes, staring blankly into the starless and polluted sky ahead of him. He couldn't remember a time he hadn't been aloof, abrasive, teasing his brothers with equal parts malice and mirth. Not that he was sorry about it; he had the fortitude to take responsibility for the person he was, and to demand that other people accept and embrace it. And they did. The tightness in Raphael's chest that had begun when he remembered Leo's mocking slowly eased, letting him breathe again despite the wind trying to push the air out of his lungs.

Amidst the ice blue and grayish green of the crane's skeleton so high above New York, a ripple of dark crimson was the only color. It was a banner for passion, for loyalty, for a hard and unforgiving love that only Raphael really understood. The night breeze whipped the torn and tattered tails of the bandana into a stinging frenzy against his face, but, eyes closed once more, he at last felt nothing at all.


End file.
